FT MEADE 
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•TORY OF THE PHILOSOPHY 
OF PEDAGOGICS 


-A LECTURE - 

BEAD AT SARATOGA, N. Y., JULY 23., 1872, BEFOBE THE NEW YoBK 
State Teachers’ Association 




CHARLES W. BENNETT, D.D., 

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Professor of History and Logic in 
Syracuse University. 




NEW YORK: 

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PAPERS ON EDUCATION. 


33 - 

First Series , * 7 . 


HISTORY OF THE PHILOSOPHY 
OF PEDAGOGICS 


BENNETT 



CONTENTS. 


HISTORY OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF PEDACOCICS. 

Page 

I. The Reformers as Educators 3 

II. The Stage of Abstract Theological Education 4 

III. 1. Jesuitism 6 

2 and 3. Jansenism and Pietism 7 

4. The Realistic-Philosophical Opposition to Scholasticism and 

to the Romish Hierarchy 9 

IV. Humanism 12 

V. Deism 13 

VI. 15 

Conclusion 18 



HISTORY OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF PEDAGOGICS. 

— LITERATURE — 

"W. Curtmann. — Lehrbuch der Erziehung und des Unterrichts. 

A. H. Neeme yer. — Orundsutze der Erziehung und des Unterrichts. 

J. F. Th. Wohlfarth. — Geschichte des gesammten Erziehungs- und 
Schulwesens, in besonderer Riicksicht auf die gegenwartige Zeit und 
ihre Forderungen. 

Fb. Kcerner — Geschichte der FddagogiJc von den altesten Zeiten bis 
zur Gegenwart. 

Fr. Kramer. — Geschichte der Erziehung und des Unterrichts in voelt- 
historischer Entwickelung. 

K. von Raumer. — Geschichte der Pddagogik vom Wiederaujbluhen 
dassischer Studien bis auf unsere Zeit. 

Karl Schmidt. — Geschichte der Pudagogik in weltgeschichilicher 
Entwicklung und im organischen Zusammenhange mit dem Oultur- 
leben der Volker. 

Henry Barnard. — Pestalozzi and Pestalozzianism. 

Augustin Thery. — Histoire de Viducation en France. 

Hermann Goldammer. Der Kindergarten. Handbuch der FrobeV- 
schen Erziehungsmethode. 

The subject assigned me by your Committee is a most 
difficult one, as will appear from an analysis. 

1. History means primarily “inquiry,” “investigation,” 
— and then is applied to the results of this inquiry and in- 
vestigation. Perhaps Cousin’s definition may be good 
enough. 1 ‘History is a complete and systematically-arranged 
account of the successive and simultaneous developments of 
all the elements that constitute humanity.” [Introduction 
to Study of Philosophy, p. 7.] 

Note. — In the following brief sketch I have used whatever material and 
sources were to me available. 1 have not hesitated often to use the exact lan- 
guage of an author when this clearly expressed my meaning. If I have not, by 
proper marks, always indicated this, my indebtedness, it will be excused in an 
essay of this character, laying no claim whatever to originality. I have been 
most indebted to the masterly treatises of v. Raumer, Schmidt, and Goldammer, 
and I desire to recommend most heartily these authors hs thorough and e&* 
haustive, 


2 


2. Philosophy may be variously defined, but there is in 
all these diverse definitions a germinal unity. It has been 
called the “The science of principles,” “The explanation 
of the reason of things,” “A collection of general laws 
under which all subordinate phenomena are comprehended.” 

1 ‘The study of universal and necessary principles considered 
under their different aspects, and in the great problems 
which they solve, is almost the whole of philosophy— it fills 
it, measures it, divides it.” [Cousin, True , Beautiful , 
and Good. Sect. I, p. 50. ] “Philosophy is reflection, 
elevated to the rank and authority of method. ” 

3. Pedagogics is the science and art of so developing, 
by means of conscious influence on the physical, intellectual, 
and moral powers of man, the ideas of truth, freedom, and 
love, that lie at the foundation of his God-derived nature, 
that he can meet spontaneously, and independently, his 
human responsibilities.” (Schmidt, Geschichte der Erzie- 
hung, p. 1.) 

We' are, then, assigned the following task — -“To give a 
complete and systematically-arranged account of the gen- 
eral, and necessary principles and laws by which there has 
been developed, by a conscious influence on the physical^ 
intellectual, and moral powers of the unfolding man, those 
ideas of truth, freedom, and love, that lie at the foundation 
of his God-derived nature, so that he can spontaneously 
and independently meet human responsibilities.” 

You will immediately perceive that the field is too vast 
even for the most cursory examination within the time 
allotted to us. I have, after considerable reflection, con- 
cluded to pass by the history of the nations of antiquity, to 
omit all examination of the educational theories of the 
Christian Fathers in the Romish and Byzantine Churches, 
as well as the struggles of mediaeval, times, marvelous as 
they were, and briefly touch upon some of the most im- 
portant and influential systems that have appeared in the 
post-Reformation period. 


3 


i. the reformers as educators. 

A revolution in thought and life so radical and far- 
reaching as that of the Reformation of the 16th century, 
could not leave the great subject of educational methods 
unexamined. The contrasts between the mediaeval or 
church spirit, and the spirit of the new era, were sharp 
and irreconcilable. 

1. It was the subjective, vs. the objective. 

2. It was the life of man in God and the life of God in 
man as the original revelation, vs. the binding power of 
external authority. 

3. It was the fullest freedom of faith and knowledge, 
vs. traditional creeds. 

4. It was the authority of conscience, vs. the authority 
of the Church or any thing else whatsoever. 

Justin’s principle was accepted by the new era — “Christ 
is the eternal reason, of which the whole human race may 
become participant, and they are Christians who live 
according to this eternal reason.” Protestantism saw that 
the schools were the training places for the callings of life 
— so that not one class or calling — whether ruler, or clergy, 
or knight — but all alike should here be prepared for life’s 
duties. The inviolability of the individual, carried with it 
the duty of arousing the people to a sense of their responsi- 
bility to God and the State ; so that the contrast of the 
pre-Reformation school idea to the Reform idea is sharp. 
The mediaeval and Catholic idea was that education must 
be special— the Latin schools to educate the clergy and 
government officials — the schools of arithmetic and writing 
for business men — the girls’ schools to educate the wives, 
etc., etc. The peculiar product and property of Protest- 
antism was education for man as man — as a creature 
endowed with power and awful responsibility. “The 
primary school of the Reformers was based on the idea 
that each one was to be his own priest, and that each man 
was to perfect in himself this salvation to which he was 


4 


called, and, therefore, that each should walk in immediate 
relation to God and the truth.” The translation of the 
Bible into the vernacular and its wide diffusion worked 
wonders among the people in Germany and England. 
Luther, Melanchthon, Calvin, Zwingli, and all the Reform- 
ers had a most keen appreciation of the duty of care for 
the young. Luther regarded this as the noblest work in 
which man could engage, and thought that Christianity 
could be powerful only as it scrupulously provides for the 
education of the children. His theory is — “God sustains 
the church through the schools — they are the fountains — 
the seed of the church.” “And just as government compels 
the subjects in case of war to bear the sword or the knap- 
sack, so much more ought it to compel subjects to educate 
their children.” In the order of excellence of subjects 
Luther ranks Religion first and uppermost — next he esteems 
Language most valuable. With Language the Exact Sciences 
are not to be neglected. He ranks History very high — 
Logic is less prized, since it gives no new capacity, as he 
thought. Rhetoric, Gymnastics, and Music are invaluable. 

The high promises of the Reformers were not, however, 
to be realized. The fatal error they committed was in 
attempting to make the schools aids to advance their 
peculiar religious tenets, and in regarding instruction in 
Christianity as the chief end and duty of the schools. They 
knew not how to tolerate purely secular learning. The 
spirit of the Reformation was well-nigh quenched in a war 
of dogmatic formulas, and by the mutual hate and jealousy 
of parties whose real interest was plainly in a settled har- 
mony. Scholasticism again revived, and we have 

II. THE STAGE OE ABSTRACT THEOLOGICAL EDU- 
CATION. 

This reached from the middle of the 16th to the 18th 
century. This period is marked by the prominence of theo- 
logic and philosophic studies to the exclusion of what are 


5 


called natural sciences. If the latter were at all introduced, 
it was more for practical utility than scientific value . 
Education and Instruction, under this plan, consisted largely 
in loading the memory with mere formulas. No opportunity 
was given for the free exercise of the powers of reason and ' 
imagination in any direction that was pleasing, and in 
modes most natural to the individual. Melanchthon’s 
celebrated Saxon School Plan that played so important a 
part in Germany and in other European countries, proposed: 
1. To assemble the pupils morning and evening in the 
church, for hearing the Bible and for prayers ; at the 
evening service Latin hymns were to be chanted. 2. The 
Latin language was to be cultivated to the neglect of the 
vernacular. 3. The master was not to be so much a helper 
of the pupils as an object of their reverence. 4. The relig- 
ious (really the sectarian) element, was to predominate in 
the instruction of all the various classes into which he 
divided the pupils. 5. The memory was to be crowded 
with the formulas of the church, and with sentences pre- 
pared by the teacher. The same order, in all essentials, 
was followed by Bugenhagen in his Church Order for 
Brunswick — placing all under the oversight of the 'Officials 
and clergy. Also, this was closely imitated in Wittenberg. 
Religion and Latin were the chief subjects of instruction. 
The higher differed from the lower in that the higher ' had 
reference to the preparation for clerical orders, and intro- 
duced Logic and Rhetoric, and a little more freedom was 
allowed to students for self-government and independent 
study. While the celebrated William Wolf uttered a pro- 
test against this system in declaring that thought , not relig- 
ous hair-splitting , was a preparation for a pure life, and love 
to God and man, — not the inculcation of bigoted dogmas 
— the chief object of education ; and Trotzendorf and Sturm 
claimed that teaching was a high art that needed most 
careful study for its successful practice, the religious and 
political strifes of the Protestants worked the death of good 


6 


instruction and tended to foster the spirit and modes of the 
Scholastic Philosophy, and to dwarf the powers by a discus- 
sion of the most minute and barren technicalities. The 
school was a place of dread and gloom to the pupils— the 
veriest “vale of tears” to the youth of this unfortunate 
period. 

HI. 

It was to be expected that there would come a serious 
revolt against a system so unnatural and so barren of results. 
It came from several sources, and worked out a new and 
more hopeful condition of things. The sources of this oppo- 
sition. may be: summed thus: 

1. Inside the Romish Church, Jesuitism represented ref- 
ormation of educational methods as well as opposition to 
Protestantism. 

n 2. Jansenism represented a still more radical reforma- 
tion in education, as in religion, within the Catholic Church. 
h 3. Pietism represented the protest, in the Protestant 
Church against the dead, dry, educational methods, as well 
as against a drear religious formalism. 

4. More powerful than all, perhaps, was the revolt of 
Philosophy in the Empiricism of Locke, and the Inductive 
System of Bacon. 

1. JESUITISM 

Opposed the freedom of the Reformation with its own 
freedom, which consists in the denial of all freedom to the 
man ; hence, in the denial of human nature, in the denial of 
morality, and of Christianity itself. It appealed to the 
ambition and avarice of men. With a sharp and vigorous 
mind, it followed out its policy. It used men of gifted 
natures to inculcate its doctrine that mankind, like a wild 
beast, must be tamed, in order to be ruled. But its out- 
ward methods were almost the opposite of the Protestant. 
Mildness, ease and grace of manner,, and polish, versus 
harshness, severity, and solidity of attainments, Latin and 


7 


Poetry were the chief studies. To speak Latin and not the 
vernacular was peremptory. Classical Studies were only 
useful, however, to improve the style , and not, as in Protest- 
antism, a mere servant of Theology. Mathematics, Geog- 
graphy, the V ernacular, and even Music, were neglected. 
Obedience to superiors , was the central idea of the system. 
Emulation was among the chief motives. Prizes, rewards, 
distinctions, all appealing to this principle, were a large 
part of the machinery of this Order. Corporal punishment 
was discountenanced, and seldom practiced. The highest 
duty of the teacher was to thoroughly know his pupils. To 
change natural affection into affection for the Order, was a 
constant aim of effort. The instruction of the Jesuits was 
very mechanical — leaving small and meager opportunity for 
the exercise of the powers of reason. They cared little for 
primary schools , except so far as they might find among 
the masses those who might give rich promise of aid and 
honor to the Order. 

2 and 3. JANSENISM and PIETISM. 

Not less strong, and vastly more salutary, was the opposi- 
tion to the dead scholastic orthodoxy of Protestantism, and 
to the pretensions of the Romish Hierarchy that came from 
Pietism and Jansenism. In many things these were closely 
related. They represented a true spiritual and religious feel- 
ing that desired to break through the constraints of form, 
and reach the central essence of Christianity. The Jansen- 
ists in Holland and France, the Puritans and Methodists in 
England and Scotland, and the Pietists in Germany and 
Switzerland were powerful in breaking through the dead 
methods of the abstract theologic, as well as the hierarchic 
systems of education, and infusing a new vigor into this most 
important department of labor. With its errors, Jansenism, 
nevertheless, manifested a most glowing love for the young 
— an unselfish surrender of interests of education and the 
race. In matters of instruction it developed a method simple, 


8 


rational, and adapted to nature. It inculcated the union of 
a more fundamental study of Religion with thorough mastery 
of Language and Philosophy. Port Royal furnished the 
most thoroughly prepared and philosophical text-books of 
that age. Even after the suppression of Port Royal and the 
scattering of the Jansenists, its spirit was perpetuated in 
Fenelon, and Rollin, and reached into high places through 
the matchless eloquence of the Court Preacher. [See Fenelon, 
De V education des jilles , dedicated to the Duchess de Beau- 
villiers]. 

In England we hear the earnest protest of the Puritans 
in the 17th, and of the Methodists in the 18th century, 
against the formalism in religion and the pedagogical 
methods of the Established Church. Milton had roused the 
kingdom by his trumpet tones, sounding a better method in 
education ; the Methodists had shamed the slothfulness of 
the establishment by furnishing religious instruction to the 
masses, and gathering the neglected children into Sunday- 
Schools. In his work on Education Milton had advocated 
an equal attention to Language and to the Sciences. He 
gave a plan of instruction far richer in spirit and extent than 
had hitherto been known — arguing for a general culture, 
to the exclusion of professional studies. Even more power- 
ful for reform in religion and in educational methods, were 
the Pietists of Germany. Philipp Jacob Spener, of whom it 
has been said “the world was not worthy,” Count Zinzen- 
dorf, and, most of all, Augustus Hermann Francke, in Halle, 
brought in a better day for the science of pedagogics. 
Pietism sent a new vigor through the entire school life of 
Europe. It gave rise to better methods, it created Normal 
Schools ; it furnished for Germany vastly-improved text- 
books; it brought the schools back from the cloister to every- 
day life ; it was the first to conceive of the schools as an 
organic whole, resting at last upon primary instruction. 
The ground principle of Pietism was, — without genuine piety 
is all knowledge, all worldly wisdom and culture, more hurt- 


9 


ful than useful. Piety comports with every lawful position 
and calling in life. First and foremost, therefore, must edu- 
cation strive after, and guard itself by, a radical improvement 
of the heart. The law of the educational method of Pietism 
was a continuous conversation with the pupils. Catechism 
is the very soul of instruction. Thus is learning made 
lighter, the intercourse of teacher and pupil becomes in- 
timate. Yet this catechetical instruction must be conducted 
so carefully and skillfully as to strengthen and not weaken 
the intellectual powers. The education of the memory was 
careful, the understanding was vigorously exercised, and the 
pen was freely used with a view to exactness of expression. 
We cannot too highly estimate the beneficial work of Pietism 
in the pedagogical methods of continental Europe. The 
effects reach, to our own day. 

4, THE REALISTIC-PHILOSOPHIC OPPOSITION TO SCHOLASTI- 
CISM AND TO THE ROMISH HIERARCHY. 

It is time to turn to another source of opposition to 
Scholasticism in Pedagogics and to the methods of the 
Romish Hierarchy. It came from the side of Philosophy. 
The instruction had become dead and formal — it yielded no 
rich and generous fruit. Books, mere books, words, terms 
— with no breath of life in them. Terms and not things, — 
words about things , — not the things themselves. Principles 
were scarcely thought of. 

Montaigne (1533—92) in France, and Bacon (1561 — 
1 626), in England, succeeded by Locke (1632— 1704), were 
the great revolutionists to overturn the scholastic methods. 
Montaigne, so early as the middle of the 16th century, had 
become disgusted with the fruitlessness of the prevailing 
systems. He said — “We may take meat into the stomach 
as long as we please, and it will be all in vain unless it is 
digested and becomes a part of ourselves — incorporated into 
our system.” Pedagogues and reformers should not speak 
as from a book, but from their own thought— from an opinion 


10 


intelligently formed by their own investigation . This, that 
now seems a truism in Pedagogical Science, was with Mon- 
taigne’s contemporaries scarcely thought of. He regarded 
the vernacular of more importance than the dead languages, 
or any foreign language. This was a revolution, indeed. 

Bacon, the reviver, illustrator, and defender of Realism, 
in his Inductive Philosophy, by inviting the mind to leave 
the dead past, to contemplate the living present, and to 
look into living nature with open eyes, lays the very founda- 
tion of realistic educational methods. 

He thus became the real father of all Trades- Schools, of 
Polytechnic Schools , etc., etc. 

Locke, by looking into mind itself— by studying anew its 
nature, its laws, and its processes, bases afterwards in his 
Thoughts on the Education of. Children , his entire Peda- 
gogical views upon his philosophy. 1 ‘A sound mind in a sound 
body,” is the foundation axiom of his whole system. Keep 
the body sound — treat children as reasonable beings , not as 
things — preserve their individuality— check their selfishness 
— inculcate self-government — let the restraint come from 
within , through a cultivation of the conscience and will — 
not from without, by means of rods and fear. Praise and 
blame are healthful motives— corporal punishment is an ex- 
treme measure. Let praise be given in the presence of 
others, that it may not only stimulate the recipient, but his 
fellows as well — administer reproof and blame to the child 
alone, lest he may lose his self-respect, as well as become a 
mark for the ridicule of his associates. A ground or reason 
for his discipline must ever exist in the mind of the teacher, 
and this should, as far as possible, be made known to the 
pupil— specially by means of examples drawn from history 
or from analagous cases supposed. Though the entire course 
of the child’s training the desire for knowledge must be 
fostered. Inquiring children must be encouraged, not chilled 
by rebuke or neglect. Play must be allowed — work must be 
made to seem a recreation, not a task. Mere assigned tasks 


11 


are not recommended. No help should be furnished by the 
teacher when there is self-help. The child should learn to 
read as soon as he learns to talk, and a foreign language 
must be learned as we learn our mother-tongue. Latin is 
early recommended. Yet the vernacular is far better than 
all other languages. 

Locke’s theory of education is strictly utilitarian . A 
well-appointed man of the worid was the product. 

In Germany the anti-scholastic methods, from a philo- 
sophical stand-point, received marked attention, and were 
wonderfully forwarded by such masters of Pedagogics as Wolf- 
gang Ratichius (1571-1635), John A. Comenius, and others. 

Ratichius exclaims, i ‘antiquity is played out — reason 
is now victorious.” His principles were clearly conceived 
and thoroughly wrought out. They were reduced to a few 
heads as follows: 1. Every thing according to the order and 
course of nature. 2. One thing at a time, one study at a 
time, one author only from which to learn a language. 
3. One. thing oft repeated and deeply impressed. 4. The 
vernacular first and foremost. 5. No constraint, since this 
is unnatural. 6. No more memorizing, — since any thing 
repeated to the understanding will necessarily be seized and 
retained by the memory.— Hence lectures were repeated 
often, and no questions during the progress of the lecture, 
lest the impression might be impaired by this interruption. 
7. Uniformity in every thing, — ever pursuing the same 
method in all stages of education, and in all things pertain- 
ing to the same stage. 8. First the thing —then the mode 
of the thing, — first the materials and principles , then the 
rules. 9. Every thing through experience, therefore no 
authority without a reason. 

Ratichius’ system resulted in practical failure, since it 
degenerated into foolish extremes, that defeated the very 
end he himself had proposed. 

Comenius had great preference for the Sciences. His 
plan was to represent every thing possible to the senses* 


12 


Seeing is demonstration and believing — what we know must 
be learned. What is learned must be treated as present, 
and estimated according to its uses. What is learned must 
be learned directly , not in a round-about way,— it must be 

learned as it is, i. e., according to its causes or origin ; 

the parts of a subject must be understood according to their 
order, position, and connection. Every thing, therefore, by 
a natural succession,— studying one thing at a time. A sub- 
ject must be continued until thoroughly mastered. Differences 
in pupils must be noted in order that modes may be adapted 
to each. All knowledge should go towards the elevation of 
the man, indeed, morality is vastly more than erudition. 
A school without discipline is like a mill without water. 
This discipline, however, should have more reference to the 
characters of the pupils than to the studies themselves. Yet 
discipline should not prostrate and discourage, but elevate 
and advance the pupil. A high sense of honor and duty 
must be awakened, that will lead to a free-will service. 
With some curious and untenable notions, Comenius’ system 
was complete, very thoroughly thought out, —expressing 
sound views of human nature and of the duties and methods 
of education, and its influence was very widely extended, 
and very lasting in its effects. 

IV. HUMANISM. 

But it was not to be expected that the realistic school 
would proceed unquestioned and unchallenged as to its 
methods. Indeed, this extreme would provoke the opposite, 
— as has ever been true in the history of human develop- 
ment. So that, during the 18 th century, there is noticed a 
growing spirit of criticism of the Pedagogical theories of 
Realism, as well as the partial and excessive religious dis- 
cipline of the Pietists. It gave rise to the humanistic school , 
that taught that the goal and purpose of all education is to 
cultivate a purely human sentiment, and to awaken in the 
individual, the idea of humanity. 


13 


The sole means necessary to this end, according to this 
school, was a thorough study of classical antiquity, its 
language, its laws, its antiquities. The Ancient Languages 
were the sole foundation of all true culture. Greek and 
Latin Literature are the sources of all true and genuine 
erudition, —and contain accounts of all religions. The Roman 
Jurisprudence embodies the spirit and essence of all that is 
truly valuable in law. The fundamentals of Medicine are 
here found ; and Philosophy, Rhetoric, Logic, Poetry, and 
History, — all that is valuable or necessary — are discussed in 
these ancient classical writings. Therefore, this theory of 
education confined the student in all the preparatory schools 
to the study of Language, — leaving what are technically 
called Sciences exclusively to the University. It found its 
most zealous advocates in Germany, though it was wide- 
spread in its influence, and has largely affected the college 
curriculum of England and America. It gave Germany the 
leadership in classical education — a leadership that she has 
maintained to the present hour. Such men as Cellarius, 
Gesner, Ernesti, Heyne, Hermann, Boeckh, etc., etc., are 
the direct product of this school, or its most successful ad- 
vocates. 


V. DEISM. 

It is high time that we turn our thoughts to a most re- 
markable educational phenomenon that appeared in England, 
France, and Germany. It was the other extreme of a per- 
verted Pietism, and the artificial, stilted, social forms that 
had been imposed on France by Louis XIV., and had found 
their way into England through the Restoration. This is 
usually known under the term Deism. The kernel thought 
of this system is, — that nothing can be certain to man that 
is not in accordance with the laws of his understanding, — 
that self-consciousness is the acme and ultimate for man, — 
that revelation, as it is called, may be useful to educate the 
crude masses, but not necessary to philosophy. It, therefore, 


14 


rejects all that is supernatural in the Christian religion, and 
retains only what is common to all religions. The principles 
that are claimed to be thus common to all religions are as 
follows : 1. There is one Supreme God. 2. This Supreme 

God ought to be worshiped. 3. Virtue and piety are the 
most essential requisites to this Divine reverence and wor- 
ship. 4. Man is under obligations to repent of and forsake 
his sins. 5. Good and evil will be rewarded in this life and 
the life to come. All beyond these five principles was re- 
garded superfluous, and the invention of an ambitious priest- 
hood. 

The work that most completely embodies these principles 
in a system of education, is Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. It 
really incorporates into itself the ground principles of Deism: 
unfolding under its pleasing narrative a theory of human 
development by mere natural processes. It is the picture 
of a child of nature overcoming obstacles, and being edu- 
cated by these struggles with nature independently of the 
artificial helps of society. We all know what a marvelous 
popularity this work immediately enjoyed. Its translation 
into all the languages of Europe disseminated its doctrines 
throughout the entire continent, and awakened an intense 
enthusiasm in many of the master thinkers of the 18th 
centuiy. The man who embraced its principles most com- 
pletely, and pushed them to a last extreme, was Rousseau, 
in his celebrated work — Emile. This work reveals the 
thoughts of this wonderful man with regard to what he con- 
siders the true theory of education. The whole theory is — 
Society is a curse — a state of abject bondage , that must be 
broken. He would have the child put forth its activities 
under no constraint, — let the child strive to gain something 
because it needs it, — let its instincts guide it to just what 
its nature craves. Obedience is not a motive or an end — 
necessity of the nature is the law. The words “obedience” 
and “command” he would blot out of the lexicons. He would 
not have a child see a book before it is twelve years of age. 


15 


The earliest education needs only to be negative — it does 
not consist in distinguishing virtue from vice, but in guard- 
ing the heart from mistakes, and the intellect from errors. 
His dogma is that all evil is the result of circumstances ; 
these circumstances being largely products and concomitants 
of society and government. Hence the correction of these 
evils is a return to a state of nature — breaking through all 
artificial shackles that now bind us. 

We see at a glance that Rousseau had by no means 
solved the deep problem of education,— since he had rec- 
ognized man neither as a member of society nor in the enjoy- 
ment of all his powers. So that his so-called natural develop- 
ment becomes, in fact, the most unnatural. Yet the effect 
of his treatise was powerful and far-reaching. It continued 
its influence for nearly a half century in France and Germany. 
It was the immediate forerunner and inducing cause of the 
efforts of Basedow in Germany, that resulted in the founding 
of his celebrated Philanthropinum, and in the wide diffusion of 
a theory of Pedagogy that worked most disastrous results 
on German social life and patriotism. The energies of this 
noble people had been completely sapped by the sickly 
sentimentalism that sprung from Philanthropinism, so that 
when the proud and victorious Napoleon marched on Berlin, 
he made the Prussian capital an easy prey. We have not 
the time to trace the wonderful transition in the educational 
methods of. Germany effected through the noble labors of 
Fichte and Schleiermacher, by which the moral element was 
reinstated and patriotism reinvigorated so that from the 
plains of Leipzig the proud invader was hurled across the 
Rhine and sent a prisoner to Elba. It is a chapter in the 
History of the Philosophy of Pedagogics full of instruction 
and full of solemn warning to our own land. 

VI. 

We have only time to mention the last stage of this His- 
tory, viz. that in which the free, untrammeled activity of the 


16 


human intellect in every department of research and dis- 
covery, has been associated with a more profound sense of 
religious need ; in which the enterprise of commerce, the 
facility of national intercourse, the conquests over nature, 
the sacredness of individual rights, have all united to realize 
a better, purer type of civilization than the world has before 
seen. The great genius of this last era of Educational Philos- 
ophy is emphatically Pestalozzi. His personal history and 
his methods have been made so familiar to us through 
Barnard’s work Pestalozzi and Pestalozzianism , that we 
need spend little time in this sketch. Dr. Karl Schmidt has 
said of him — “Unattractive in outer appearance, poorly clad, 
often unwashed, with matted hair, with shoes run down at 
the heels and with stockings often half covering them, — 
lacking in calm discretion, — with little tact in business, — 
without social shrewdness, — through his all-embracing love, 
through his readiness to sacrifice in helping the distressed 
and down-trodden, which could send him to cut off his 
silver shoe-buckles for a beggar and then bind on his shoes 
with straw, he has, through his humility, his modesty, his 
unselfishness, wherein none of his contemporaries approached 
him, — harmless, and yielding as a child, — mild and teach- 
able, tender and full of feeling, — inspired the world with 
the duty of ennobling the race, and in a long-continued con- 
test against the coarse or more refined Materialism of his 
age, against the narrow Egotism and the trivial and painful 
Utilitarianism of the period, has lifted high the abiding ideal 
of human life, and labored for the good of the race and for 
the natural development of the mind of the child.” 

The ground philosophical principle of his whole system is 
— “Proceed from intuition to notion.” This does not imply, 
however, a mere passive receptivity , but a spontaneous, 
active receiving. As soon as the senses receive their first 
impressions, begins the development of the powers of the 
man. The means used by him are to place (he education ot 
the people under th s mother's care, and erect the home into 


17 


a school. This idea he actualized by giving to mothers a 
book on education — The Book for Mothers , the first of the 
kind, it is believed, that had ever appeared. If the home 
is not a holy temple of God, if the mother fails to vivify and 
inspire the heart and mind of the child, then all thorough 
reform of the social condition is impossible. This is the 
fundamental note that rings through all his works. Already 
at the cradle of the unreasoning child, must we begin to 
snatch the race from blinding, deceiving influences and place 
it in the hands of a better power, which the experience ol the 
centuries has enabled us to deduce in relation to mental and 
moral laws. This need of elementary work is general. The 
mother in her processes must follow the course agreeable to 
the nnture of the child, — so also must the school. All school 
cultivation that does not thus accord must lead astray. 
Humanity is alike in its nature, its needs and its goal; hence 
a like discipline is demanded for all and evermore. 

Such, in imperfect outline, is the Philosophy of Education 
of Pestalozzi. 

In this connection one more man must be mentioned, 
whose zeal and success in primary instruction entitle him to 
a high place among original workers in the Philosophy of 
Education. I refer, of course, to Froebel — the real founder of 
the Kindergarten in Germany. He agreed entirely with 
Pestalozzi in* his high estimate of family training — going so 
far as to assert that so long as the mother neglects to train 
her child according to the laws of its nature, all attempted 
reforms in the schools will be in vain. His observation that 
the first dawnings of child-life were accompanied with desires 
for activity and motion, led him to the determination of the 
laws of this activity, and to the devising of means of con- 
serving this restlessness to useful and educating ends. 
Since activity is the very condition of development, to guide 
this activity into right channels he regarded all-important. 
Noticing what was universal — that is, the laiu of the action 
of the child — he reached this result — “that the nature of the 


18 


child manifests itself universally in play. No more true is 
it that birds build nests, or foxes dig holes, or bees form 
cells, than that children play ; — it is their nature .” 

Therefore, to develope and educate the young mind by 
means of play, is the central idea of Frcebel’s system. 

We cannot pursue the system further. Suffice it to say 
that these two — Pestalozzi and Froebel — are the coryphei 
of modern primary instruction, — exerting in this hour an 
influence on modern civilization, that is entirely inconceivable. 

The fullness of this sketch might lead me to touch upon the 
more modern developments in the science of Pedagogy — 
and speak of the modifying force of certain dogmas of 
modern philosophic thought — such as Comte and his school 
— Herbert Spencer, J. Stuart Mill, Hamilton, &c., &c., but 
since your scheme calls for papers on “ the relation of modern 
philosophic thought to popular education” — “principles of 
education as advocated by Herbert Spencer” and 1 preserv- 
ative effects of education,” in which latter paper I suppose 
the writer will touch on the teachings and results of Prison 
Discipline, &c. — I deem it best not to trespass upon the 
territorv of these essayists. 

CONCLUSION. 

The History of the Philosophy of Pedagogics has proved 
to me a most interesting and instructive study*. It seems to 
me that no one who makes any considerable pretension to 
thoroughness as an Educator, can afford to neglect it. It 
certainly shows us that Pedagogics is no chance work which 
every dabbler or pedant is well able to undertake, but, rather, 
the most serious, difficult and far-reaching in its consequences 
to the individual, the family, and the State. It teaches us that 
those great thinkers, who tower like Alps above their fellows, 
have regarded its study with the profoundest interest, and have 
brought to the solution of its hard problems their choicest 
powers. It likewise teaches us that there is a deep Philosophy 
of Pedagogics — a Philosophy that has to do with subjects of no 


19 


less interest than the nature of man, the destiny of man, and 
the means by which this nature can realize this destiny. At 
a glance we see that the Philosophy of Pedagogics is only a 
branch or corollary of General Philosophy, that it ever has 
shifted, and ever will shift, with a shifting Psychology, with 
a shifting Theology, with a shifting Philosophy of History, 
and with the shifting views of the doctrine of final causes. 
If man is of the Earth, earthy — after a few days of strug- 
gling and of tears to return to the dust to rise no more; — if 
History at best is only your incoming on the stage to mount 
on the shoulders of your predecessors, and my incoming to 
mount on yours — you and I alike serving our brief purpose, 
yet to have no share in some final triumph, — then the 
Philosophy of Pedagogics is one thing, — it may have its 
motives, we ?nay 7 possibly, find our inspiration to work. 
But if the History of Education is like Universal History — 
a history of Mankind “by God, through God, to God, v — if 
Christ is the middle point of Universal History, also of the 
History of Pedagogics, if my sacrifice is to contribute to 
the elevation, not of my immediate successor alone, but to the 
final triumph, which I, too, am to share; — if my destiny is 
bound up intimately with the destinies of the race, and 
the destinies of the race are affected by my conduct ; if, in 
short, this historic drama is the necessary medium of moral 
development to the race, which shall clearly appear in the 
grand denouement; — then this work of ours lias its mo- 
tives, — it has its inspiration , — I know it, — you feel it, — 
and we are willing, fellow-workers, to toil on in obscurity, 
if needs be, — little appreciated it may be, — poorly, requited 
often, — but still proud and satisfied, —because co-workers 
with the Great Teacher in lifting the race from bondage to 
freedom, and from darkness to the light of life. 













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